Refugio Amazonas (4 days / 3 nights)

Refugio Amazonas is a 32-bedroom lodge four hours from the Puerto Maldonado airport. It is ideal for soft adventurers and families, and has a rainforest trail designed especially for children, the only one in the Peruvian Amazon.

Refugio Amazonas is located in a 200-hectare private reserve within the buffer zone of the Tambopata National Reserve. Rainforest Expeditions is partnering with local families, who sustainably harvest Brazil nuts from the surrounding rainforest, to ensure that they share in the benefits of ecotourism. This program is the ideal short, economic, introductory nature
tour to Amazon richest rainforest, search for caimans at night and learn about tropical fruits at Don Manuel´s farm, among other activities, in this 3 nights introductory trip to Tambopata.

Itinerary Refugio Amazonas (4 days / 3 nights)

Arrival and reception by our guides are biologists, tourism professionals,
or community members.

Unless noted otherwise, our guides speak English. We assign
guides at 10:1 ratio in Refugio Amazonas. This means groups smaller than 10 people will be merged with
other groups under one guide. If you would like a private guide or a guide in
a language other than English please let us know.

Transfer airport to Puerto Maldonado Headquarters upon arrival from Lima or Cuzco, we
will welcome you at the airport and drive you ten minutes (about) to our Puerto Maldonado headquarters. While enjoying your first taste of the forest in
our gardens we will ask you to pack only the necessary gear for your next few
days, and leave the rest at our safe deposit. This helps us keep the boats and
cargo light.

Transfer Puerto Maldonado Headquarters to Tambopata River Port Skirting Puerto Maldonado, we drive 20 kilometers to the Tambopata River Port, entering
the Native Community of Infierno. The port is a communal business.

Transfer by boat: Tambopata River Port to Refugio Amazonas The two and a half hour (about) boat ride from the Tambopata Port
to Refugio Amazonas will take us past the Community of Infierno and the Tambopata National Reserve checkpoint and into the buffer zone of this 1.3 million
hectare conservation unit.

Orientation: Upon arrival, the lodge manager will welcome you and brief you
with important navigation and security tips.

Dinner.

Night walk:
You will have the option of hiking out at night, when most of the mammals are active but difficult to see. Easier to find are frogs with shapes and sounds as bizarre as their natural histories.

Overnight.

Day 2: Refugio Amazonas (B-L-D)

Breakfast.

Oxbow Lake Visit: We will paddle around the lake on a canoe
or a catamaran, looking for lakeside wildlife such as hoatzin, caiman and
hornerd screamers, hoping to see the otters which are infrequently seen here.
You will also be rewarded with overhead sightings of macaws.

Canopy Tower: approximately a thirty minute walk from Refugio Amazonas leads to the 25 meter scaffolding canopy tower. A
bannistered staircase running through the middle provides safe access to the
platforms above. The tower has been built upon high ground, therefore
increasing your horizon of the continuous primary forest extending out towards
the Tambopata National Reserve. From here views of mixed species canopy flocks as well toucans, macaws and raptors are likely.

Lunch.

Farm visit five minutes (about) downriver from the lodge
lies a farm owned and managed by charismatic Don Manuel from the neighboring
community of Condenado. He grows a variety of popular and unknown Amazon crops
- just about every plant and tree you see serves a purpose.

Ethno botanical: Tour along this trail we will find a
variety of plants and trees that are used by the local population with at
least the same variety of purposes. We will learn about the medicinal (and
other) uses of ajo-sacha, yuca de venado, u ña de gato, charcot-sacha,
para-para, among several others.

Day 3: Refugio Amazonas (B-L-D)

Breakfast.

Parrot Clay Lick: A fifteen minute (about) boat ride and
sixty minute walk from Refugio Amazonas is a clay lick used both by parrots and parakeets. From a blind
you will see parrots and parakeets descend on most clear days to ingest the
clay on a bank. Species such as dusky headed and cobalt winged parakeet
descend at this clay lick. With luck we will also see some or all of the
following species in the early morning rush: mealy and yellow-crowned Amazons,
blue-headed Pionus, Severe macaw and orange-cheeled (Barraband`s) parrot. We
visit the lick at dawn, when parrots are most active or in midmorning or early
afternoon, when they are active.

Lunch.

Brazil Nut Trail and Camp: A few minutes hike from the
lodge is a beautiful old growth patch of Brazil Nut forest that has been
harvested for decades (if not centuries) where the precarious remains of a
camp used two months a year by Brazil Nut gatherers can still be experienced.
We will be demonstrating the whole process of the rain forest's only
sustainably harvested product from collection through transportation to
drying.

Mammal Clay Lick: Twenty minutes (about) walking from Refugio Amazonas is a peccary clay lick. These wild rain forest pigs show up in
herds of five to twenty individuals to eat clay in the late morning. Chances
of spotting them are around 15%, but well worth the short hike. Other wildlife
also shows up including deer, guan and parakeets.

Dinner.

Night walk: You will have the option of hiking out at
night, when most of the mammals are active but difficult to see. Easier to
find are frogs with shapes and sounds as bizarre as their natural histories.

Day 4: Puerto Maldonado / ... (Lima or Cuzco) (B)

Transfer Puerto Maldonado Headquarters to airport, we retrace our river and road
journey back to Puerto Maldonado, our office and the airport, for your flight to Lima or Cuzco.
(Depending on airline schedules, this may require dawn departures.)

Recommendations

It is recommended to buy your tickets according to the following
schedules to avoid disappointment.

Refugio Amazonas Lodge - Play Video

Our system will only require payment of booking services after our Travel Consultants has sent you the confirmation codes and availability for all services required.

The online payments in Peru-Top10.com and associated websites, are guaranteed and 100% safe and secure, you can choose to pay with PayPal or E-Latin Travel payment gateway, certified and safe. Both payment methods with credit cards offer security not exchange confidential information or to disclose your number of credit card, with our staff and meet the highest safety standards in the industry, globally accepted for payment processing online.